Archive for State Security Emergency Court

Group warns of violence against anti-Brotherhood protesters

by admin
August 20th, 2012

The Facebook page of the group calling for "a second revolution on 24 August to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood and its party" warned of violence against demonstrators by Muslim Brotherhood members on Monday.

The statement comes after a controversial fatwa issued by radical Qatar-based cleric Wagdy Ghoneim and statements from the Azhar cleric Sheikh Hashem Islam , both condoning the killing of anti-Brotherhood protesters.

Ghoneim, who is currently residing in Qatar, was sentenced in absentia in January 2011 by the State Security Emergency Court to five years in prison, along with four others, on charges of money laundering and financing the Muslim Brotherhood, then an outlawed organization. He was recently pardoned by Morsy.

Ghoneim said it is legitimate to kill those who would protest Morsy’s rule, just like at Prophet Mohamed’s time, when outsiders (khawarij) to Islam were killed by the prophet’s men.

Islam, a member of the Fatwa (religious edicts) Committee of Egypt's highest Islamic authority, told a seminar on Tuesday at the Diplomats’ Club in Cairo that the people intending to take part in the anticipated protests will be committing “a major treason," and called them bandits, traitors, disobedient to God, His messenger, the nation and all Muslims.

“The 24 August protests are a revolution by ratters against democracy and freedom," he said.

Islam said Quranic verses and the Sunnah oblige people to support the leaders they elected over renegades. He said President Mohamed Morsy was elected in direct, fair elections, the transparency of which was attested to by the whole world.

“Resist them; if they fight you, fight back, if they kill you, you are in paradise, if you kill them, there is no blood money,” he said.

Ghoneim's fatwa and Islam's statements were disparaged by Brotherhood members and political figures from across the spectrum. Azhar authorities distanced themselves from Islam, who later said he did not advocate violence, only self defense. 

The 24 August group's statement  urged the President to immediately act against the "terrorist" fatwas and to refer the people who issued them to trial. It also called upon Morsy to clearly state that he adopts the right for peaceful demonstration and that he will face anyone who attacks demonstrators.

The silence of the President "portends a deficiency to act and the probability of threats from saboteurs." The statement said the group is not against President Morsy, but against "militias and armed gangs" that publicly announced its presence among the Brotherhood leaderships.

Page administrator Ayman Yakoub said the group hadinvited the Brotherhood to dialogue, but they have not yet responded.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Preacher calls for media purge

by admin
July 3rd, 2012

Wagdy Ghoneim, a Muslim preacher, called upon President Mohamed Morsy to “purge the media immediately, including the press and TV, state or private, and Internet sites.”

Those who bark day and night cannot be underestimated, he added.

Ghoneim said on his Twitter account that “if the president does not hit the remnants of ousted regime with an iron fist, the media and all those who publish news that harm the security and stability of the nation, he will fall soon.”

The preacher called on Morsy to draft a law with a penalty up to execution for destabilizing the nation with fabricated news. “Fabricators are not less dangerous than bandits, because they steal the minds of the people," he said.

Ghoneim is currently residing in Qatar. In January 2011, the State Security Emergency Court sentenced him in absentia to five years in prison, along with four others, on charges of money laundering and financing an outlawed organization. In April, one of the other defendants was acquitted after appealing the verdict.

The defendants faced charges of money laundering and providing LE4 million in funds to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization established in violation of the law, to fund their activities from January to June 2009.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Taba bombings retrial adjourned to September

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June 13th, 2012

The South Sinai Court on Wednesday adjourned to 12 September the retrial of 13 defendants charged with involvement in the 2004 Taba bombings.

Eight of the accused who were previously sentenced to life imprisonment escaped from prison during the 25 January revolution. Of the remaining five, three were sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment.

The bombings in Taba, a city overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba in the Sinai Peninsula, took place in October 2004, killing 34 people. The State Security Emergency Court heard the case in 2006.

The government announced in February that the accused would be retried before a criminal court.

Egyptian authorities say that the Tawheed and Jihad group was behind a series of bombings in Sinai, the first of which took place on 7 October 2004 in a Taba resort near the border with Israel. Subsequent bombings took place on 23 July 2005 in Sharm el-Sheikh and on 24 April 2006 in Dahab.  

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Public prosecutor refers emergency law cases to civil courts

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June 11th, 2012

Cases that would have been tried by the State Security Emergency Court under the Emergency Law should now be referred to felony and misdemeanor courts, Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud instructed on Monday.

On 31 May, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ended the state of emergency that had been in force for the past 31 years.

Mahmoud also ordered an end to the use of exceptional authorities allowed under the Emergency Law, such as detention, monitoring telephone lines and recording private conversations.

Mahmoud said that Egypt should focus on issues such as thuggery, which have a negative impact on the security and safety of the nation. The courts should ensure the quick completion of all open investigations, he added.

In the past, thuggery cases were amongst those that fell under the jurisdiction of the State Security Emergency Court. However, these cases will now fall under the jurisdiction of ordinary courts.

The Emergency Law, which lays out the actions that the government can take during a state of emergency, was put in place following the assassination of former President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The law’s first article says that a state of emergency can be declared whenever there is a risk to security or public order anywhere in the country, whether from war, the threat of war, internal disturbances, public disasters or pandemics.

On 23 January, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi decided to lift the state of emergency in advance of the anniversary of the 25 January revolution. However, he left a clause in place stating that the Emergency Law could be still be applied in cases of “thuggery,” without defining that term.

A disagreement then erupted between political forces and legal scholars about how to interpret “thuggery” under the law.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Police witnesses claim protesters attacked security during Israeli Embassy riot

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March 1st, 2012

 

Protesters assaulted security forces during rioting outside the Israeli Embassy last August, police witnesses testified in court Wednesday.

The State Security Emergency Court later adjourned the trial of 76 suspects to 24 March. The prosecution has accused them of violence against civil servants, assaulting policemen, breaking into the Giza Security Directorate, damaging public and private property, and possessing bladed weapons with the purpose of destabilizing public security.

"I was notified that protesters were gathering before the Saudi Arabia Embassy, who then decided to assault the Giza Security Directorate,” said police officer Ahmed Ibrahim Moussa, a witness in the case.

Moussa said that when he arrived at the area of Murad Street lined by the Israeli and Saudi embassies, as well as the Giza Security Directorate, a group of people he called saboteurs began attacking security forces with stones and Molotov cocktails.

Moussa testified that the alleged attackers were not protesters, since they didn’t have any demands. Policemen injured in the attacks had to be taken to hospitals, he said.

“We were at several protests and strikes of Public Transport Authority drivers and others, which were peaceful ones that were secured by police, unlike what those saboteurs did at the embassy,” he said.

Moussa also added that security forces arrested eight suspects on the scene and held them near the embassy until they were taken to the Giza Security Directorate.

Additional police reports were later filed against other protesters who attacked police, Moussa said, and most of the defendants were arrested after the clashes.

Moussa denied arresting any suspects who weren’t involved in the riots, and noted that police officers were only provided with tear gas canisters and blank ammunition.

Policeman Mohamed Abdel Shakour, another witness in the case, said, “During interrogations, suspects admitted to attacking the Giza Security Directorate and Israeli Embassy." He did not provide any details as to how many suspects admitted to attacking the buildings or why.

The prosecution has said its investigations found that people with criminal records, as well a former police officer accused of inciting the riots, were among the 40 suspects.

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